Fay the Ring-Bearer
by Gigigue
Summary: Frodo is a girl named Fay, and when she inherits the One Ring from her Uncle Bilbo, she must go on an epic quest do destroy it. Not only that, and she just might find love with true friends on the way. NOT SLASH! Rated T for violence.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Finally, from the authors who until this point had only written parodies, you are now getting a (dramatic silence) romance! Basically, after watching every Lord of the Rings movie at least five times (probably more), we noticed that if Frodo was a girl, his actions could be explained in a much more natural way. All the times that Frodo didn't fight, and just went off and hid, all the times he got hurt, or was helpless, just seem to fit a girl in a much better way than a guy. No offense girls. So here we are, gender-swapping Frodo. And just to add a little more romance, we're gender-swapping Pippin too. Enjoy! Co-written with **veebeejustte**.**

** Disclaimer: **Although we wish we owned LOTR, we don't. Sorry.

Chapter 1

There she was, sitting on a wooden chair, watching the festivities. It was the 111th birthday of the renowned Bilbo Baggins. It also happened to be her 33rd birthday. And, unsurprisingly, the two were related - second cousins to be exact, although she tended to refer to Bilbo as 'Uncle'. Her long black hair fell to her waist. Her blue eyes glistened in the lanternlight. And, in Sam's opinion, she looked absolutely beautiful. Fay didn't know that however, and for now, Sam was content with that.

As a rousing song began to play, some of the other young hobbits got up to dance. Fay jumped up with them, her feet skipping merrily over the ground, the ribbons in her hair flying loosely in the air.

After a few minutes, Fay breathlessly ran up to Sam. "Sam! Come on and dance with us!"

"Oh, I think I'll just have another ale," Sam stalled.

"Oh, no you don't!" And with that, Fay pulled Sam off his seat and into the whirling mass of skirts and feet. Unsure of what to do, he just stuck with Fay for a while.

After several dances ranging from fast to awkwardly slow, Sam excused himself to take a quick breather. Sam's young friend Merry sauntered up with a knowing grin on his face.

"So, I saw you and Fay dancing out there!" he said mischievously before hiccuping.

"Oh, you know we're just friends." Sam rolled his eyes slightly. He leaned in a little closer. "And you shouldn't be talking. What were you doing kissing Paige in the corner over there?"

"Shh!" Merry said hurriedly. "It's supposed to be a secret." He hiccuped again.

Sam looked concernedly at him. "I think you should lay off on the ale."

"Oh, come on. It's nothing. It's a party, what am I supposed to be doing?" Merry winked and walked off, stumbling a little on the way.

Sam rolled his eyes, and decided he had lost any appetite for ale that night.

* * *

Paige ran to meet Merry, who was on his way back to the ale keg.

"Merry! Come quick!" she yelled. "I found the fireworks!"

Merry's eyes lit up as she dragged him to where a wooden cart was stuffed brim-full with fireworks of all shapes and sizes. The wizard Gandalf had brought them, being famous for his spectacular pyrotechnic displays.

Quickly, Merry boosted Paige up onto the cart, where she began rummaging through the wide variety of firecrackers and other assorted explosives.

Paige chose a long skinny one and pulled it out from the others, shoving it towards Merry, who shook his head. "No, no, the big one!" he whispered, hastily looking around to make sure nobody could see or hear them.

Paige looked around quickly, then spotted the gigantic firework. It was bright red, and one end was in the shape of a dragon head. It was taller than she was, and she grinned deviously, thinking about the explosion it would create. Tossing it to Merry, she hopped down off the cart.

They quickly slipped into a nearby striped tent. Merry shoved the end of the firework into the ground, while Paige lit a match. She lit the fuse, then blew out the match.

Merry was keeping the dragon from tipping over, and as the fuse burned lower, he shoved it toward Paige. She shoved it back immediately.

"You're supposed to stick it in the ground!" Merry said worriedly.

"It is in the ground!" Paige retorted.

"Outside!"

"This was your idea!"

In a flash of yellow sparks, the firework rushed into the sky, pulling the tent with it, and leaving the pair of hobbits lying on the ground, their faces covered in soot, grinning madly.

* * *

Sam was chatting with Fay, laughing over some joke, when a loud rushing noise filled the air. The two looked up, watching excitedly as another of Gandalf's famous fireworks flew into the air. It flew, gaining speed and height. As it reached the height of its arc, it began to expand, growing larger, and gaining large bat wings. A long tail snaked into existence, and the monster turned around, flying in a rush of wind and fire directly at the grouped hobbits.

A dragon! The festivities were replaced by masses of hobbits running from the beast. Fay clutched Bilbo on the shoulder and warned him of the danger, but he insisted that there had been no dragons anywhere for years. Then, just as Fay got Bilbo to look at the dragon, the creature started to contract. The dragon folded and folded until it was almost nothing, then exploded into the biggest firework Fay had ever laid eyes on. It was astounding.

Sam watched in wonder as the trails of light slowly dissipated. Silence reigned for a moment, when suddenly everyone erupted into cheers. Now that the threat was gone, they could all appreciate the genius of the firework.

Merry and Paige were overjoyed by the result of their little 'escapade'. Gandalf, however, was not, and he immediately set them to work washing the myriad sets of dirty dishes produced by the feasting.

After the commotion had settled down, Bilbo situated himself on a platform in front of the crowd. The hobbits called for a speech, and Bilbo willingly obliged. After greeting each of the represented families, he began.

"Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday! Alas, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like and I like less than half of you, half as well as you deserve."

There was no small bit of confusion regarding this statement, as everyone tried to figure out whether it was an insult or a compliment.

"I, er, I have things to do," Bilbo continued. He reached slowly for his pocket. "I've put this off for far too long. I regret to announce that this is the end. I'm going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell. Goodbye."

With those final words, Bilbo disappeared without a trace. A startled gasp erupted from the assembled hobbits.

Fay jumped up in surprise, her eyes frantically scanning the crowd for any sign of Bilbo. Sam, worried about her, and knowing how close she and Bilbo were, approached her cautiously.

"Fay, are you alright?" he asked, concerned.

Fay didn't answer, instead running off towards her home, Bag End.

"Fay!" Sam called after her.

**A/N: ****Read and review! Guest reviews accepted.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Man, sorry about the incredibly long wait. This started out as a really boring filler chapter, until yesterday when we actually came up with a hilarious idea which made this chapter good. You guys will probably hate us for ruining this moment forever in your minds, but it was totally worth it.**

Chapter 2

Fay rushed up the path, slamming the gate as she ran. Her feet pounded the cobbled lane, an air of urgency about her. She tugged open the round green door of Bag End and ran inside. Suddenly, she stopped. Looking down, she noticed something glinting just inside the doorway. She stooped down to look at it.

It was a ring. A rather ordinary looking ring at that. Yet the mere presence of it seemed to draw Fay into a sort of trance. The firelight from the next room reflected off the shiny golden surface of the ring. She could sense a soft whisper in the edge of her conscience, saying something unintelligible. With a start, she pulled herself back from the subconscious state, and looked over to her living room.

Sitting in front of the fire, a long pipe in his mouth, was Gandalf, staring into the flames and muttering something under his breath.

"He's gone, hasn't he?" she asked, referring to Bilbo. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to make sure. Gandalf didn't answer, so she continued. "He talked for so long about leaving. I didn't think he'd really do it." She stopped once more and when he still didn't answer, she walked up to him. "Gandalf?"

Finally, Gandalf spoke. "Bilbo's ring. He's gone to stay with the elves. He's left you Bag End, along with all his possessions. The ring is yours now." After a short pause he added, "Bring it here."

Fay reluctantly handed Gandalf the ring, and immediately regretted it, as Gandalf threw it into the fire. "What are you doing?!" she cried, just waiting for the ring to melt into a pool of golden liquid.

Just as quickly, Gandalf pulled it out, using the fireplace tongs nearby. It was unharmed, and barely looked hot.

"Hold out your hand Fay," Gandalf ordered. "It's quite cool." With that, he dropped it into Fay's palm.

Fay flinched involuntarily, expecting it to burn her hand. Surprisingly, Gandalf was right - it was just room temperature.

"Can you see anything?" Gandalf questioned.

Fay turned the ring over in her fingers. "I don't see anything," she said. Still, something made her keep looking, and suddenly, there it was, a glowing yellow script, flowing and curling, slowly appearing on the golden band. "Wait, there is. Some form of Elvish. But I can't read it."

* * *

Sam absentmindedly trimmed the bush outside Fay's window. He didn't quite know why he was gardening in the dark. Probably something to do with the fact that he liked being wherever Fay was. Sam was a perfectionist, and he was trying to trim the bush into a perfect sphere.

_Hmm, the top isn't quite right_, he thought. _Too flat_. He climbed a little ways up the bush in order to reach it better. As he started trimming, however, he began to hear a conversation from inside the house. It sounded like Fay and a man talking. Sam leaned closer, trying to listen, while still absentmindedly trimming. The man was saying something, but he couldn't hear all the words. It sounded like, "Hold out your hand...Fay...bound to the ring...hand...Fay..." Sam froze. Sam's thought process here:

_Fay + Ring = ?!_

At that moment, Sam looked down at the bush he'd been trimming. Without knowing, he had started trimming downward, turning the bush into the perfect shape of a heart. Sam's mouth fell open with the shock of everything he'd just seen, heard, and done. With a loud rustling noise, he fell out of the bush.

Suddenly, everything inside the house went quiet. As Sam lay on the ground, trying to catch his breath, a walking stick seemed to fall from the sky and hit him on the head, which didn't help much in the circumstances. A hand yanked him up and pulled him through the window. There staring at Sam, was Gandalf. Sam's thought process once more:

_Fay + Ring + Gandalf = Somebody please kill me now..._

"Confound you Samwise Gamgee, have you been eavesdropping?" Gandalf yelled.

"Well, I sort of was, but now I really wish I hadn't..." Sam blustered.

But that wasn't enough for Gandalf. "What did you hear? What did you hear of our conversation?"

"Well, I heard a lot about Fay, and the ring, and, and, please don't turn me into anything unnatural!"

"Hmm, perhaps not. I have a better idea. Sam, you are going to accompany Fay to Bree, while I go to seek council with a senior wizard. I will meet at you at the Inn of the Prancing Pony. Come, we must leave quickly." With that, Gandalf shoved everyone out the door.

Fay, in the meantime, was a little disconcerted."Um, Sam, why were you eavesdropping outside the window?"

"I wasn't _really_ eavesdropping," Sam said shakily, "I was just trimming the bush."

Fay nodded. _I guess he is my gardener_, she thought. But as they walked down the path, she noticed that the bush he had been in was trimmed in a strange shape. In fact, it was trimmed into the shape of a heart. Fay's thought process here:

_Sam + Eavesdropping + Heart = ?!_

Suddenly she remembered what he'd said he'd overheard. Fay's next thought process:

_Sam + Eavesdropping + Heart + Me + Ring + Gandalf = Somebody please kill me now..._

* * *

After Sam had gotten his cooking things from his house, Gandalf led them to a clearing in the woods, where he left them to travel on their own. After walking for a couple hours, Sam stopped at the edge of a cornfield.

"What's wrong?" Fay asked.

"If I take one more step," Sam said sadly, "it'll be the farthest I've ever been from home."

Fay smiled gently. "Come on Sam." She held out her hand, and Sam, a little surprised, but happy nonetheless, took it, and stepped over the imaginary line.

As they walked off, Fay thought, _So, the journey has started - the journey to destroy the Ring of power._

Sam, beside her, was thinking similar thoughts, _So, the journey has started - the journey toward Fay's wedding._

**A/N: Dun-dun-dun... *dramatic music* Yup. Isn't it horrible how we're torturing Sam? Oh, and the decision to make the bush heart-shaped was a long process. It started out being an antelope. Then came the One Ring, a potato, bacon and eggs, and lastly Gollum's head. Then we decided a heart would make a little more sense. So yeah. And then the story turned into, you know, _this_. Hope you enjoyed and please review!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: And we're back! Yeah, we know, we've been lazy, we haven't been updating, kill us all, okay, we're good. So, ready for another chapter? Hopefully. Okay, since a lot of you were confused about the last chapter (hooray** Lifeislikeapotato **for getting it), we'll explain. Basically, Sam assumes that Gandalf has proposed to Fay. 'Cause of the whole 'ring' thing. Yeah. Okay, here we go.**

_Should I tell him? _Fay thought. _Well, he'd feel like an idiot if I told him. But, I mean, it'd be the right thing to do... If I wait any longer, it'll become like a fanfiction story written by two teenaged girls who fangirl over Sam. Whoa, where did that come from? What in Middle-Earth is fanfiction? And fangirling over Sam?! Gosh, it's like last night's dream. That was really odd. Wait, where's_ _Sam?_

She turned around to see Sam barreling toward her, yelling at the top of his lungs, "Fay! Fay! I thought I'd lost you!" Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around Fay, hugging her awkwardly.

"Uh, Sam, What are you talking about? And what are you doing for that matter? You're kind of crushing my lungs."

Sam blushed. "Oh, hehe, sorry." He quickly let go, hiding his hands behind his back. "It's just something Gandalf said."

"What did he say?" Suddenly, Fay felt very afraid.

"Don't you lose her Samwise Gamgee, and I don't mean to." _No, I'd _never _try to keep Fay from her wedding with a six-foot thousand-year-old wizard who somehow managed to become her fiance..._ _Oh gosh, I'm gonna kill myself once this is over...  
_  
"Sam, we're still in The Shire. What could possibly happen?"

Well, apparently Paige and Merry crashing out of the cornfield surrounding them could happen, because it did. Sam was suddenly toppled over by Paige, who was running as fast as she could. She landed on top of him, and abruptly, they were nose to nose, looking at each other.

"Oh, hi Sam!" Paige said with a cheerful grin.

Sam was not pleased* **(We couldn't decide whether to use a period or a comma, so we decided to make it an asterisk.)** "Don't you have a boyfriend or something?"

"Well, yeah, but look where he is now," Paige joked.

Sam pushed her off of him, and looked apprehensively toward where Merry and Fay were in the same situation that Sam had found himself in with Paige. "Get away from her!" he yelled, fuming.

"Why would you care? I mean, it's not like you two are a couple or anything," said Merry, spoken like a true Sam/Rosie fan.

Luckily, right at that moment, Farmer Maggot's sickle popped out from the corn, swaying as he ran toward the hobbits, yelling, "Hoi! You get back here! Wait till I get this through you! Get out of my fields! You'll know the devil if I catch up with you!"

The hobbits looked at each other. "You've been in Farmer Maggot's crop, haven't you?!" Sam cried.

Paige rolled her eyes. "No, really, that just dawned on you? I mean, it's not like you're holding a bunch of carrots and stuff."

Sam looked down. Sure enough, he was holding some carrots, a couple beets, and two heads of lettuce. "Whoa, how did that get here? Do I have short-term memory loss or something?"

Fay facepalmed.

"Okay, let's get this straight," Paige explained. "I fell on top of you, and when you stood up, you took the vegetables with you. And you somehow didn't notice."

"No one cares! Run!" Merry exclaimed, pushing the others off the path and into the cornfield.

Sam dropped the vegetables he was holding, and ran after them.

Merry, who was running next to Paige, called to her, "Dunno why he's so upset! Its only a couple of carrots..."

"And some beets and those few heads of lettuce," Paige continued.

"Yes Paige, my point is, he's clearly overreacting!"

Paige stopped dead at the edge of a cliff, when suddenly everyone else slammed into her. An astonished rabbit, looking on from the side, saw a mass of wibbly-wobbly hobbity-wobbity stuff tumble over the precipice and land in a heap.

"Ugh," Sam said, shaking off dirt and leaves, "trust a Brandybuck and a Took! You two always have to get in messes like this."

"Well, yeah. It's fun to get in scrapes," countered Merry. "I mean, look where we ended up. It's a random forest, and, and a path, and, uh, trees! That's fun, isn't it?"

"Yeah, right Merry," said Sam, groaning inwardly. He helped Fay and Paige up. "Which direction is Bree anyway?"

Paige perked up. "Bree? You and Fay are going to Bree? Sweet! We can go to The Prancing Pony! They have some of the best ale in the area. Other than The Green Dragon, of course."

"As a matter of fact, we _are_ going to The Prancing Pony," Fay said.

Merry and Paige grinned at each other. "Let's go then!" they said in unison. They skipped on down the path, heading towards Bree.

Sam sighed and looked at Fay. "Well, I guess they're coming along now too."

Fay smiled ruefully. "Yeah, we'll see how this turns out."

**A/N: Sorry, this was sort of a short chapter. Shortish. It's another one of those filler things. We didn't do the Black Riders because we felt like Sam would probably figure out that something was wrong, and that they weren't going to a wedding. We almost had Merry and Pippin eat toxic mushrooms and hallucinate about Carly Rae Jepsen and the Tardis. But we decided against it. This is supposed to be a drama, after all. Anyway, that's all for now! We'll hopefully have another update soon. Maybe. Possibly. If we're not too lazy...  
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